Police probing Indian woman attack with utmost seriousness: NSW

Updated: Monday, March 9, 2015, 14:00 [IST]

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New Delhi, Mar 9: New South Wales Premier Mike Baird has assured India that the fatal attack on an Indian woman IT professional in a Sydney suburb is being probed by police with utmost seriousness even as a special detective squad was formed to pursue the investigations.

Describing the attack on 41-year-old Prabha Arun Kumar as a "sad event", the Ministry of External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said the assurance was given by Baird during a telephonic conversation with Sanjay Sudhir, Consul General of India in Sydney.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said she was pained to know about the murder and that she was in constant touch with India's Consulate in Sydney which is providing all help. "I am pained to know about murder of Prabha Arun Kumar in Sydney. Our Consulate is in touch with her Company there and we promise all help," she said in a tweet.

Akbaruddin told reporters that Sudhir, the victim's husband Arun Kumar, and a representative of her employer Mindtree, an IT firm, had a meeting with the NSW police during which they were informed about a special detective squad being formed to probe the attack.

Asked whether the attack had a racist angle, the spokesperson said one should wait for the outcome of police investigations. "One should not impute motive, Police are probing the matter. Let was wait for the outcome," he said.Akbaruddin the External Affairs Minister is herself monitoring the situation.

The NSW police launched a probe following the stabbing of 41-year-old Prabha Arun Kumar, who was on the phone with her husband in India, when the "horrific" attack happened on Saturday in Westmead, a suburb of Sydney.

Prabha worked for IT firm Mindtree in 'The Rocks' and had reportedly been working a double shift the day of her death. Prabha's distraught husband Arun Kumar and their 9-year-old daughter had reached Australia from Bangalore to formally identify her body, media reports said.

Prabha's husband was on the phone with her when she was brutally stabbed in the park. "She was talking with her husband Arun Kumar in India when she said 'he stabbed me, darling' before the line went dead," an Australian media report said.

Detective Superintendent Willing said her husband was now telling detectives about the conversation Prabha was having with him before she was killed. "We have some detail in terms of their conversation," he said adding that, "He's understandably extremely distressed."